Shaking her head, Marguerite forced her eyes back to the magazine in her hands, and managed to read a whole sentence before her gaze slid back to settle on Julius once more.

Really, this was just ridiculous. She couldn't seem to stop thinking about the man.

Now that she felt sure he'd kept Christian's mother's identity a secret to protect him, her judgment had softened considerably. A good parent protected their child as much as possible and that was what he'd been doing. Even more impressive to her was that for five hundred years Julius had allowed Christian to think he was simply being annoyingly autocratic, and had preferred Christian to be angry with him for not telling rather than cause him the pain that knowing his own mother hadn't wanted him and had actually ordered him dead would bring.

Marguerite thought it a very caring thing to do. Most men would have happily revealed the truth and probably delighted in painting the mother a bitch while presenting themselves as the saintly parent who had saved them from her clutches and raised them with love. Instead, he had neither told the truth of the matter nor painted her as anything and Marguerite thought Christian had probably benefited from it.

Julius glanced up from the newspaper he was reading and Marguerite immediately looked away, groaning inwardly as she felt a blush creep up over her face. She was seven hundred years old, not a schoolgirl, for heaven's sake. She had no business blushing. Next she'd be giggling and holding pajama parties.

"I should have picked the cheese and onion sandwich."

"What?" Marguerite glanced at Tiny. He was making a face as he opened his sandwich and spread it out on the table between them.

At first, she didn't think he'd answer. His concentration was on the serious business of scraping off the brown relish from his Ploughman's sandwich, but then he sighed with disgust as he got the last of it off. Slapping the two parts of the first sandwich half together, he explained, "I don't like this brown stuff they put on their ham sandwiches over here. I should have picked an onion and cheese sandwich."

"Why didn't you, then?" she asked with amusement.

"I wanted meat," Tiny muttered.

"They had shrimp salad," she pointed out.

"Shrimp is not meat," he said with disgust and then added, "And who ever heard of putting shrimp on bread?"

Marguerite smiled faintly at the comment as she reached over to take one of his chips and popped it in her mouth. Salt and vinegar. Mmm. The flavor burst in her mouth, almost painful in its sharpness.

"Why didn't you get something for yourself if you're hungry?" he asked with disgruntlement.

"I don't eat," she reminded him.

"Yeah, right," he said on a sigh.

Ignoring his ill-temper, she took another chip and popped it in her mouth. She then sat back in her seat and tried to concentrate on her magazine article. So far, she wasn't seeing any new and wondrous techniques. It seemed nothing had changed much in that area in the more than two hundred years since she'd got pregnant with Lissianna. Good to know, she supposed.

"You look pale, Marguerite. When was the last time you fed?"

Marguerite glanced up with a start, cursing the blush that returned to her cheeks as she saw that Julius had stood and crossed to stand in the aisle beside her. There was a concerned look on his face.

She snapped her magazine closed before he could see what she was reading and answered honestly. "I ran out just before we started the drive to London the night before last."

His eyes widened incredulously. "But you had a cooler in the hotel. Dante brought it with your suitcase."

"The cooler is empty. I was supposed to receive a delivery at the Dorchester but we left before it arrived. I never got around to calling Bastien last night," she said with a shrug.

"You should have said something. We have plenty to share," Julius said with exasperation as he reached up to shift through the bags in the overhead rack until he found and pulled down the small black cooler bag he'd stored there. Taking the bag, he turned away, ordering, "Come."

Marguerite's natural instinct was to refuse the order, to rebel where she hadn't been allowed to rebel against Jean Claude. But she would only be spiting herself. Her body was aching at the very idea of the blood in the cooler he carried, and she couldn't feed in front of a trainload of people. Sighing, she got to her feet and followed him up the aisle and out of the carriage.

Julius led her to a door and opened it, revealing a small bathroom. Her eyebrows rose at the tiny cubicle, but when Julius stepped aside for her to enter, she stepped inside. Marguerite then turned to accept the bag of blood she expected him to hand her, but instead she found him following her inside.

Eyes widening incredulously, she quickly scuttled to the side, trying to make room for him, but there was really little room to make. In truth, the tiny cubicle was probably too small for him to sit in comfortably alone. It was positively claustrophobic with both of them standing in there. Not that it seemed to bother him, Marguerite noted as he set the small cooler bag on the sink and moved in front of it. She heard the sound of his unzipping it, and then he turned to offer her a bag of blood.

"Thank you," Marguerite said, her fangs sliding out as she took the bag. Leaning against the wall to brace herself against the sway of the moving coach, she popped the bag to her teeth and met his gaze, only to glance self-consciously away as she waited for her teeth to do their work.

Julius didn't take the opportunity to berate her further for not mentioning her need. This rather surprised her. Jean Claude would have. Instead, he simply waited until the bag was nearly empty, and then turned away briefly to retrieve another bag. When the bag on her teeth was empty and Marguerite pulled it free, he held out both hands, one offering her a fresh bag, the other waiting to take the empty one, and they swapped.

Marguerite had never needed as much blood as Jean Claude and the boys, but that need had seemed to lessen as the centuries passed, until now she could go three or four days without feeding if necessary before the need became unbearably painful. She knew it was unusual for an immortal, but it was the way she had always been.

Jean Claude had once said it was the sign of an exceptionally strong constitution. That was way back at the beginning of their marriage when he had still troubled to complement her on occasion. That period hadn't lasted long. His ability to read and control her had soon quashed whatever little bit of respect he'd held for her when they'd first married. It had made her weak in his eyes, less...and not deserving of respect.

Pushing these unpleasant thoughts away, Marguerite removed the second empty bag and shook her head when Julius offered her a third. The first two had taken the edge off her hunger and she didn't want to deplete the men's supply when she intended to call Bastien and have him arrange for someone at the UK branch of Argeneau Enterprises to deliver her own supply once she knew where they were staying in York.

"Take it," Julius insisted, giving the fresh bag of blood a shake. "You're still pale."

Marguerite gave in less than gracefully, even performing something of a restricted flounce as she accepted the bag and popped it to her teeth.

For some reason, that made Julius smile. He didn't comment, however, but simply waited patiently for her to finish and then tucked the empty bag away in the cooler when she was done.

Relieved to finally be able to leave the cramped space they were sharing, Marguerite stepped out from beside the toilet the moment he closed the bag and turned to the door. However, the train began to slow then and rather than exit, he turned to speak, and then paused as he found himself face-to-face with her.

Julius's eyes became hooded as he peered down at her expectant face and then he murmured, "We'll have to wait. The aisles and corridor will be crowded with people disembarking. It's best to wait until the train starts to move again and everyone is settled."

"Oh," Marguerite breathed, her gaze somehow finding its own way to his lips.

She felt his fingers brush over the skin of her arm and shivered slightly at the tingle the small touch sent through her. Her gaze returned to his eyes then and she saw the silver of his eyes flicker as if he too had felt the shock of attraction she'd experienced, then his hand was curving over her shoulder to wrap around the base of her neck. He used his hold to draw her forward and tilt her head at the same time as his mouth lowered to hers.

The first touch of Julius's mouth on hers was a revelation. Marguerite may have felt something the first time Jean Claude had kissed her. She'd been infatuated by the man after all. But seven hundred years of pain and cruelty had followed those days and by the end, she'd felt nothing at all when he'd touched or kissed her.

Her reaction to Julius was a stark contrast. Marguerite felt almost too much as his soft lips brushed over hers, then settled firmly and urged her own open. Suddenly breathless, her body humming, she moaned into his mouth and slid her arms around his neck, pressing close as his hands ran over her back urging her closer still.

Julius was not unaffected. His hold on her neck tightened almost painfully before his hand suddenly slid up, his fingers tangling in her hair. He used that hold to direct her head as his mouth became demanding on hers. His tongue filled her and his hips ground into her so that she felt the proof of the effect she had on him. But she didn't need that to tell her what he was feeling, she was experiencing it herself, his excitement and pleasure and need rushing into her, joining her own and bouncing back to him, only to return doubled again.

Heat roaring through her, Marguerite curled the fingers of one hand into the hair at the back of his neck and tugged in demand while with the other she clawed at his shoulder.

The train shuddered as it came to a halt and they both stumbled, breaking the kiss, then Julius urged her back against the wall, pinning her there with his weight as his lips traveled across her cheek to her neck. Gasping, Marguerite tilted her head back briefly, moaning as his teeth grazed the tender flesh. She didn't notice that he'd set to work on undoing the buttons of her blouse until he suddenly pulled the sides apart and leaned back to look at what he'd revealed.

Marguerite bit her lip as his eyes slid hungrily over the black silk under her blouse.

"This has been driving me crazy since we met in the lobby of the hotel," he growled, running two fingers of one hand lightly over the curve of one black silk encased breast. "What is this?"

"A chemise," she whispered, flushing and starting to feel embarrassed and uncomfortable as the passion and their connection began to slip away.

"I could see it through your blouse," Julius growled.

Marguerite opened her mouth to explain that it was supposed to be visible through the blouse, but gasped instead as his hand suddenly closed over one breast. Then his mouth was on hers again and passion leapt in her once more.

Moaning into his mouth as he tugged the soft cloth of the chemise aside so he could touch her breast unhampered, Marguerite pressed herself into his leg, raising her own slightly to rub it against his groin at the same time. In the next moment, Julius had turned them both until the small sink counter was at her back. Pressing her against it, he broke their kiss and ducked his head to replace his hand at her breast, drawing the nipple into his mouth and lavishing it with attention as his hands reached for the hem of the short black skirt she'd donned that morning. He quickly began to draw it up her hips.

Excitement coursing through veins too long denied, Marguerite immediately reached to cup his erection in her hand and squeezed encouragingly, then cried out as Julius bit down on her nipple lightly in response. Raising his head at once, he kissed her again as his hands finished with her skirt, raising it almost to her waist so that one hand could slide between her legs. This time it was Marguerite who bit down, grazing his tongue briefly before she controlled herself and began to suck on it instead as his fingers brushed against her through her panties. Then he tugged the delicate cloth aside and found the warm, wet spot waiting for him.

By the time he lifted her onto the tiny counter, Marguerite had forgotten where they were and that people could be outside the door. Her legs wrapped around him automatically and she reached between them to help with his belt and the unfastening of his dress pants when he reached for them.

"Marguerite?" Tiny's query was followed by a knock on the door that made both Marguerite and Julius freeze. A second knock made them break apart.

Marguerite stared into Julius Notte's ebony eyes, watching the silver fire recede, leaving them mostly shadowed black...and wondered what on earth she thought she was doing. She'd nearly had sex in a cramped little bathroom on a moving train between London and York, for God's sake. What had she been thinking? This was not keeping her distance.

Another knock sounded at the door, drawing her from her thoughts as Tiny said, "Marguerite? Are you okay?"

Biting her lip, she avoided Julius's gaze and began to tuck herself back into her clothes, doing up buttons and pushing her skirt back down over her hips.

She heard Julius breathe a curse, then he eased away from her and began to straighten his own clothes. They finished at about the same time, then he reached around her to grab the black cooler, his mouth thinning when she shrank from his touch.

Pausing, Julius peered at her and said quietly, "I would never hurt you, Marguerite. You have nothing to fear from me."

Then he turned and opened the door, murmuring something to Tiny as he stepped out and headed back into the train carriage.

"Are you all right?" Tiny asked, eyeing her with concern through the open door.

Marguerite let her breath out on a sigh, but nodded. "Yes. I'll be there in a minute, just...give me a minute," she said wearily.

Tiny hesitated, then nodded and closed the door, leaving her alone.

Closing her eyes, Marguerite stood still for a minute, then turned to peer at herself in the mirror. She may have straightened her clothes, but the signs of what had happened were all over her, written in her rumpled hair, her swollen lips, and-Dear God, was that a hickey? She ran her fingers lightly over the barely visible mark, then lowered her head and closed her eyes, forcing herself to breathe deeply.

Everything was fine, she assured herself. Everything would be fine. But she was having trouble believing it. She'd just indulged in a necking session and almost-sex in a cramped and really not very clean-she noticed now-train bathroom.

Everything wasn't all right. She was in trouble. She'd fallen in at the deep end and was sinking fast. Marguerite was not the promiscuous sort to go jumping men at every turn. Jean Claude had been the only lover she'd ever had, though lover was a kind description. It just wasn't her nature to be indulging in a sordid little bit of hanky-panky in a train toilet. It seemed to her that her best bet was to solve this case as quickly as she could and then scurry back to the safety of her home and family.

And that was that, Marguerite thought determinedly as she turned to open the door of the bathroom to head back to her seat.

"There you are," Tiny rumbled as she settled back in her seat. "I nearly came to blows keeping your seat for you when everyone got on this last time. These Brits are quick bastards."

Marguerite managed a shaky smile knowing that was the only reason he'd said it. He was just trying to make her smile. He wouldn't have had to fend for her seat, their seats were reserved. "Thank you for guarding it for me."

"No problem." He eyed her and then asked under his breath, "Are you all right?"

"Yes. Thank you for coming when you did," she answered and meant it. She was sure he'd saved her some heartache by interrupting what had been happening. Leaning over, she gave him a grateful kiss on the cheek, then picked up the magazine she'd been reading, raising it in front of her face to hide from the three pairs of male eyes she could feel on her; Christian, Julius, and even Marcus were all staring at her as if she had sprouted a third nose.

Ignoring them, Marguerite forced her gaze back to the magazine she'd been pretending to read because it had an article on York in it. Since she'd never been to the medieval city, she hoped to learn something about their destination. She hadn't learned a thing yet. Not because the article wasn't good or informative, Marguerite couldn't say if it was or not. She hadn't absorbed a word of the damned article, her attention had kept slipping to Julius. Now, her eyes were staying firmly on the magazine in her hand, but her mind was slipping back to those heated moments in the bathroom.

Trying to distract herself, she glanced out the window, watching the nightscape roll by. In the dark it looked not unlike Canada, and she found herself thinking of home and her daughter and worrying. This was the second night she hadn't contacted her family. They'd have started to worry when she hadn't called the night before. She'd called every night since landing in England.

Of course, Tiny would have called Jackie to check in and she'd let the others know they were fine and what was happening, Marguerite assured herself, letting that worry go. It still left her worrying about her daughter, but Tiny would have told her if anything was happening at that end. Maybe. Vincent probably wouldn't be the first to hear if his cousin went into labor. He and her son Bastien used to be close and seemed to be rebuilding that old friendship, but he really didn't know Lissianna well.

"Tiny, would you trade seats with me? I'd like a word with Marguerite."

Marguerite glanced up in surprise to find Julius standing in the aisle next to them. Tiny hesitated, his questioning gaze moving to her, and Marguerite could have kissed him for his loyalty. He wouldn't move unless she said it was okay. The problem was, it would be incredibly rude of her to say no, especially when the man had shared blood from their supply with her. As for what had taken place in the bathroom, she hadn't been fighting him off. He hadn't forced her, so that gave her no excuse to be rude.

"Marguerite?" Tiny asked quietly when the silence drew out.

Sighing, she gave a slight nod of her head. He nodded back and then stood and the two men shuffled around each other in the narrow space afforded as they switched seats.

Marguerite eyed Julius warily once he was settled in Tiny's seat.

"Are you feeling better?" he asked with stiff politeness after a moment. When her eyes widened incredulously, he quickly added, "From the blood."

A cough from Marcus made them glance his way. When he raised his eyebrows at Julius, Marguerite didn't know what he was trying to say, but then she realized that Julius had been speaking in a normal voice when he'd mentioned the blood. She glanced at Julius to see that he was just grasping the meaning behind Marcus's expression as well. His eyes widened as he realized what he'd done, then he looked angry with himself, and then confused as if he couldn't understand how he could have done something like that and finally he just looked defeated. She almost felt sorry for him.

"Marguerite?" he said quietly after a moment.

"Yes?" she asked reluctantly.

"Did I offend you in some way last night?"

She blinked in surprise at the question. "No, not at all."

"Good," he said, nodding solemnly. "It's just that when you met us in the lobby you wouldn't even look at me, and I noticed in the taxi and then on the train you chose to sit as far from me as you could."

Marguerite stared at him silently, her mind awhirl. How was she supposed to answer that? What could she say? "Oh no, I'm not offended at all, I simply can't read you, am eating and fear I'm falling in love with you and while twenty-four hours ago that would have horrified me, I now find that I'm quite wishy-washy on the subject and am hoping that you can't read me either so we could have a true relationship as lifemates. Would you mind trying to read me right now so that I can either jump across this table and kiss you if you can't read me or get myself as far away from you as I can if you are able to read me?"

Marguerite was rolling her eyes at her own thoughts, when Marcus suddenly leaned across the aisle and hissed at Julius, "Tell her you can't read her."

Eyes widening, Marguerite glanced from one man to the other in question. Marcus was looking grim and insistent, Julius was looking startled. He stared at the other man with shock, then jumped up, grabbed him by the arm and dragged him from the seat and along the aisle out of the carriage.

"Did I hear that right? Did Marcus just say that Julius can't read you?"

Marguerite turned to look at Tiny as he dropped back into his own seat. She nodded slowly.

He considered her expression. "You don't look as horrified as I expected."

Marguerite breathed out a little sigh and confessed, "I'm a bit confused. I don't think I'm as afraid of relationships as I thought, just non-lifemate relationships."

"Like the one you had with Jean Claude," Tiny suggested.

She nodded.

"But if Julius can't read you and you can't read him, and you're eating...is he eating too?" he asked curiously.

Marguerite nodded.

"So...he's your lifemate, which would be an okay relationship. Right?"

"I think so," she said uncertainly.

"That's what I thought," Tiny said sounding relieved. She understood why when he added, "So, I guess I don't have to run interference any more, right?"

"I-" She shook her head helplessly, unsure what anything meant at the moment, but he took it as agreement that he didn't have to and released a breath of relief.

"Good. Cause I thought Julius was going to kill me when he came out of that bathroom."